The Great Adventure

I love The Amazing Race. I love the theme music, I love Phil's voiceovers, I love watching all the teams race through exotic locales. I cheer when the nice team comes in first, and I get teary-eyed when someone I like gets eliminated. I boo the jerks (there's always one or two thoroughly unlikable teams) and cheer when they get eliminated.

I'd love to compete in The Amazing Race. It'll never happen in a million years because I'm Mr. Anti-TV Personality with a face made for radio, but I'd kill small rodents for the opportunity all the same. My teammate and I would zip through roadblocks and conquer detours. We'd never need to use the fast forward because we'd always find the fastest route to the mat.

In short, I want adventure. I want a life that's more than punching a timeclock every day and going to church on Sundays. And I want someone to share that adventure with. I'm not even talking about marriage now - just give me a best friend (or two) to face the world with, and there'll be no limit to what we can do.

To be sure, I've already had more than my share of incredible friends, some of whom I've known since college (or longer). I'm even out to most of them. But all of them have busy lives, and most of them have families to look after. None of them are available for adventuring, except maybe around the game table. And while killing monsters with the roll of a die is fun in its own way, it's not real. At the end of the evening the only world that's been saved gets packed up into a notebook and stored on a shelf until the following week.

I have no idea what the adventure looks like, but I know it's out there, just waiting for me. I don't care if I'm Frodo or Sam, or even Gimli, as long as we get to set out for Mount Doom.

But what if the adventure doesn't await? What if my only Comrades In Arms are a TV Guide and an internet connection? What if God's wonderful plan for my life involves sitting at a desk for the next 40 years? Sounds depressing, quite frankly. I'm not sure I'm quite ready to face that possibility just yet. Good thing the Amazing Race is on every Tuesday.